If you have been waiting for the likes of Google and Apple to create a self driving car and thought you might have to wait a few years before grabbing one, think again. Tesla motors has announced that its Model S will receive a software update within the next 90 days that will allow it to steer itself on the highway and promised much more automation in the future.
On Thursday, Tesla Motors released an underwhelming update to its Model S electric sedan sending its stock prices falling. Elon Musk had promised an end to "range anxiety" with the new update but it turns out this just meant a series of GPS functionality improvements and advanced warnings for when the car is set to run out of a charge.
However, the press conference gave us all a teaser for the automatic driving capabilities that will come as a part of the next update. Elon Musk said that the first update that would allow it to self drive would come in 90 days, with a second update to follow at some point in the next six months. According to Musk, the update will allow the Tesla Model S to park itself in a garage, drive to meet a user if summoned by a smartphone and it would even be able to drive from San Francisco to Seattle with very little input from the driver. The full automation, though, would only work on private propery.
Tesla is currently working on more advanced features that would allow the car to drive under continual autonomous control, but the car manufacturer believes in bringing these abilities to consumers a piece at a time and yesterday's announcement reveals that the company wants to bring consumers this technology much more quickly than anyone expected.
Some luxury cars such as Audi and Mercedes already allow self driving on the highway. But the automation that Tesla promises has yet to be seen in the consumer space with many analysts believing that it could reverse the company's fortunes in China as well.
Despite this promise from the car manufacturer, investors are still unsure about the future of the company and the stock has suffered because of this fact. The firms stock price has fallen fare below the record highs it experienced last year and this announcement has done very little to relieve fears of the future. Many experts believe this is due to difficulty investors have in measuring the risk reward of the company's business model.
The new automation features are certain to increase demand for the product, but predicting whether that will be enough is very risky although the idea of a car driving itself is exciting to say the least.
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